Review
Dick Slepy is troubled. As patriarch of the Slepy family, Dick longs to be the commanding force that tightly holds his wife and maturing daughters together. As a commuting pathologist, however, he has instead become a "weekender" who helplessly watches as his family becomes incrementally unglued.
As a child, Dick desperately turned to God and the Virgin Mary as stand-ins for his own less perfect parents. In the fullness of faith, "Dick carried his burdens to God through Mary, and Mary lifted those burdens away." But now that Dick is a man trying to raise his own four daughters, the clear guidance and adoration once found in his youth has become far more complex.
Dick's wife Seena is also working off the script of a poorly written childhood. Because she "had never been loved - not by a parent, never with depth," she struggles to mother her own...
Beyond the Book
Slave Castles
A pivotal scene in
Amaryllis in Blueberry occurs when the Slepy family visits one of West Africa's slave castles. Though the slave castle in the story isn't mentioned by name, research will lead you to the Elmina and the Cape Coast region located on the coast of Ghana.
Castles were constructed along the coveted West African coast by European traders. The castles were originally built as trading posts and military forts due to their strategic positioning and proximity to the water. Though these trading posts were originally utilized for such items as gold, ivory, timber, and spices, by the late 1400s trade had expanded to include the buying and selling of human cargo in the form of African slaves.
St. George...
